Film Review – Horrible Bosses

I’ve been reading a lot of the reviews for Horrible Bosses and if I took a shot every time someone made a reference to The Hangover when reviewing this film I would have died of alcohol poisoning within ten minutes. People seemingly CANNOT review this film without in some way comparing it to that film and I suppose it’s because the sequel did massive numbers earlier this year and so that’s the standard we have to hold this film, which has NOTHING in common with that film aside from it being a comedy with three male leads. Seriously. This is nothing like The Hangover. I’m going to try to hammer that point home pretty heavily because I don’t even want that to be a factor. Horrible Bosses is a different beast altogether. With a different sort of humor at play and with a tone that separates it pretty handily from just about any other recent comedy.

I would have to say that I enjoyed Horrible Bosses more than I enjoyed The Hangover, for starters. It’s definitely better than the sequel which, for the record, is probably the laziest sequel I have ever seen committed to film. If ever there was a beat-for-beat retread of its predecessor, that would be it. What we get out of Horrible Bosses is a little bit more original, although I think it’s something that everybody has thought about at one point or another. I’m sure most of the people reading this blog even had thought up a way to do it. I won’t give mine away. But it was pretty intricate. That’s not the point. The point is that as a comedy it’s not afraid to go places that other comedies seemingly would. Although I admit that I was hoping it would go darker than it actually did. I’m not gonna lie, I was disappointed in that aspect. But the acting on display here was phenomenal. These characters are all hilarious in their own ways and that’s what really makes the movie sing. Jason Bateman might be the world’s best comedic straight man. His line delivery is pitch perfect every time. Jason Sudekis is really coming into his own as well. I haven’t seen much of his recent SNL work but I did love him on 30 Rock and he was pretty good in Hall Pass, but he comes across far better here. The real standout is Charlie Day who, as fans of It’s Always Sunny in Philidelphia will tell you, is just nut-bustingly funny. His manic delivery is great here and while he’s essentially playing a character much like the one you see every week on Sunny, he comes across more as blissfully ignorant and good-natured here whereas his character on Sunny is pretty much a useless bastard.

This is a very well developed comedy. The plot beats work. The character work is great. Everyone seems to be hitting the targets they’re aiming for. Jamie Foxx didn’t even piss me off once, and I kinda hate that guy. Doesn’t that say something about how good this movie is?

2 responses

I thought this was pretty funny. Bateman, Day and Sudeikis had really great chemistry and Aniston, Spacey, and Farrell were all pretty evil and villainous as the bosses.. I did wish it would have gotten a bit darker with it’s subject at certain times but overall, pretty good I thought. Good Review! Check out mine when you can!